From MozillaZine Knowledge Base

This article will help you fix Firefox problems caused by a corrupt localstore.rdf file, which include:

• Changes to the toolbar reset themselves after you close Firefox and start it up again
• Window size or position not remembered at startup
• Bookmarks appear in the Bookmarks Manager but not in the main menu and can't be edited [1]
• "Add Bookmark" dialog not working [2]
• Firefox 1.5: Search engines missing from the Search Bar and unable to add new engines (for Firefox 2 and above, see this article)

Solution

You need to remove the corrupt localstore.rdf file so that Firefox can generate a new copy. Any toolbar customizations will be gone when you next restart Firefox but future changes will be retained. Before continuing, you may wish to save a screen capture (print screen) which may help in restoring your toolbar customizations.

Use either one of these methods:

Safe Mode method

Exit Firefox completely and then restart Firefox in Safe Mode. A window called Firefox Safe Mode with some troubleshooting options will appear:

Select the option "Reset toolbars and controls" and click "Make Changes and Restart".

Manual method

Exit Firefox completely, open the Firefox profile folder (Windows users, read this for help finding it) and delete the file localstore.rdf.

Caution: Do not delete the localstore.rdf file in the Firefox program installation folder by mistake [3].

See also

• Files created on startup - first time use of a profile or individually recreated if missing
• Standard diagnostic - Mozilla Suite
• Top 10 support topics

Related bug reports

• Bug 99236 – localstore.rdf should be deleted when it is corrupt (fixed in Firefox 2.0.0.4)
• Bug 319196 – customized toolbar always reset to default on restart, bookmarks and search engines lost, unable to add search engines (localstore.rdf corruption on upgrade or crash)